Rich
Franco's “The Art of Copying Art Work!”
Hello
to All!
There
seems to be a lot of discussion here, on FAA, about art work being
copied and the resulting issues, too dark, too light, blurry, areas
out of focus, “Is it my camera?”, etc., and I'd like to take some
time(Rich,sometime?, How about lots!) and explain the basics and then
the not so basics of copying your art work correctly.
First,
the vast majority of images copied and then rejected if sold, are
from not following a few fundamental steps and generally, not the
quality of the camera, or for that matter, the size of the art work,
itself.
ANY
camera,digital or film, can adequately copy your art, but of course,
you are limited with the output that your camera can produce and
enlarging your file, adds to the list of problems. So I'll start with
this, if you have a digital camera and it's in sorta newish and can
be mounted on a tripod and has a self-timer and finally, can be
switched to something other than “Auto”, you're good.
What
limits great copies from good copies,will be the quality of the
sensor, that's in the camera you have. Example: if you have a point &
shoot (P&S) camera, it's sensor is about the size of you finger
nail on your pinky and I'm not looking at my nail, but yours! That's
pretty small. Of course, cell phones have sensors, even smaller!
Although they are catching up.
Using
your P&S camera and it's tiny sensor,regardless if it says
12-14-16 mega-pixels(mps), will limit you to the eventual size of the
print that can be offered here,when you compare the same 12-14-16 mps
that are on DSLR's, Digital Single Reflex cameras, with sensors that
are almost full frame, or are actually the full frame sensor, that is
the same size of the old 35mm negatives and slides we use to get.
So
all “pixels” aren't created equal! The pixel from the full frame
DSLR is many times larger than the pixel from the P&S camera and
thus, the amount of information,stored/captured in the larger
sensor,will make a much better image.
This
little “side trip” through digital cameras, will answer a lot of
questions later and hopefully, benefit the understanding of the
process, as we come to each step.
Bottom
Line: Any camera can be used to copy your art, the
better($$$) the camera, the better the file that will be produced.
Let
me talk a little about “light” and the quality of light,both
inside and out. Studio lights, strobes and even hot lights, are
produced to create a certain “type” of light, looks like
sunlight, looks like incandescent light, but are used to create that
particular type of light, over and over. When I used my strobe light
to photograph a person or product, I knew that the light would be
consistent,shot after shot. One last thing to consider,when working
8-10 hours a day, in a dark studio.
Outside
light, on the other hand, is almost constantly changing through the
day. Did you notice I said “almost”? There's a period and I
learned this many years ago, from the local Kodak guy,when testing
film for Kodak, that roughly from 10:00 a.m. And 2:00 p.m., on a
cloudless day, the “color” of light is almost a perfect 5500 to
6500 kelvin, no, or little color caste. There is an argument that
5500 or 6500, is now the standard, although ALL TV stuff, is now set
to 6500,which is a tiny bit warmer than 5500 k.
My
point, you ask? Well, if you are going to copy your artwork outdoors,
then guess when's the best time to do that? Yepper, 10:00 to 2:00 and
the closer to 12:00, the better. This is assuming you can “light”
your art work, directly by the sun and not in the shade. Using a nice
white “tent”, to kill any direct light coming from the sun, is
best. Second best, is to have your art work in the shade, but bounce
sunlight, from large 4x8 foot sheets of white Foamcore,evenly, back
into the art.
And
even the mostest betterer, set your camera's white balance and use a
gray card,to first capture the art, which “teaches” the camera,
what a true and accurate color is and ALL the colors in the art will
be reproduced accurately.
Bottom
Line: You can accurately copy your art work, outside, if you
use a few rules and tools(white diffusion material,white Foamcore),
and white balance(WB).
So,
say you're living in Seattle and you say to me, “Hey Rich, I think
I remember what the sun thing you talk about is, but what do I do?”
Good question, let's go inside,out of this rain and talk about it!
Shooting
your Art Work Indoors
What's
really nice about shooting your art work indoors, is that, it hardly
ever rains,get's dark,windy,buggy(mostly, I'm in Florida!) AND YOU
can control the light! Unlike that Sun thing, which is constantly
moving! So good news! So where do we start? Whoa, not so face, mon
ami, lets gab a bit first. There are ALL kinds of light sources you
can use inside, from professional lights, both hot and
cool(fluorescent).
Probably
my first choice, if you have the room!
They
make these neat vertical banks of light now, 4 bulbs, like in a “shop
light” and turned vertically and provide a very even,steady light
source and once the “white balance is “corrected” to these
lights, will be perfect, as long as the bulbs last. Of course, you
can make this same kit your self, with a trip to Home Depot, buy the
4 bulb “shop” light kit and 4 5500K bulbs, for each “Shop”light
and you're good to go! Unlike true hot light, these never,ever get
hot and can be on, all day. In fact, the bulbs should be on about 20
minutes when you start, so they get all up to the right temperature.
So if you have the space and shoot a lot of artwork, then this set-up
will work for you!
The
next level is to use the bulbs/reflectors in my tutorial,which cost
here about $23 each, so you would need about 4 to 6 lights,depending
on the size of your art work. And then anything else you might use,
should have the same bulbs,regardless of how you point them or direct
them. Using different bulbs,with different light color,will be a true
headache and not worth the savings.
Bulbs:
Reflectors:
http://www.homedepot.com/p/HDX-150-Watt-Incandescent-Brooder-Clamp-Light-HD-303PDQ/204684496
Bottom
Line:
You can easily and cheaply set up your own “studio” for copying
art and cheaply too and get great results!
Now, before we jump into the
“mechanics” and the “copying”, one last tidbit of information
about light and how it applies to copying art work. Unless I'm wrong
and I doubt it(Sir Charles Barkley), MOST art work will be
rectangular or square, not many circles being sold here on FAA! So
here's the issue, we are using a light source, that is round and the
“circle” of light that is aimed towards and onto the art
work,will also create a circular pattern, makes sense? And to keep
the circles of light from ONLY lighting the spots they hit, we have
to make sure that the circles overlap each other and blend in.
Here's a “tidbit” and a
great crossword puzzle/Scrabble word, “Umbra” and her brother,
“penumbra”. I really just like to use words that have “bra”
in them, like “braccolli”! Anyway, I digress. The diagram
below,demonstates both the “umbra”, A and the “penumbra” B.
Why this is important, is that you ALWAYS want your artwork, within
the umbra, or “A” here in this diagram. So the first short black
line (C), is where your art should hang, not on the back
wall(D),where there is a smaller and harder “sweet spot” to hit.
The umbra, is evenly lit and if done correctly, the entire surface of
the artwork, will be properly exposed. You can see that the lights
are on a 45 degree to the artwork and that's the reason, so now you
know why I always say, make sure the lights at at this 45. You now
know as much as me! Good news/bad news!
*** Having trouble uploading images right now to my Blog!
